“You’ve wrecked and ruined my life,” the pretty virago went on, “with your interference, and after all the work I’ve done! After all them – I mean those hours I’ve spent with his lordship workin’ at the Treasure, an’ he told me I was the most helpful secretary he’d ever had–”

He let her talk herself to a sobbing incoherence.

“All this may be true,” he said soothingly, “and probably is. The point is, your presence here is a little – indelicate.”

Seeing her look round over her shoulder as she was talking, he had taken a quick survey of the ruins, expecting to discover that she had a companion. But there was nobody in sight. The ground sloped steeply from where he stood to the little Ravensrill, the broad brook which had for a thousand years marked the boundary of the manor. Unless somebody was concealed behind the fallen masonry she was alone.

“I suppose you want me to clear out now,” she gulped, and he inclined his head.

“I will walk with you to Fontwell Cutting – that is the nearest way to the village,” he said, and she was too much occupied with her manufactured misery to resent his offer.

What had she been doing in the abbey ruins so early in the morning? He knew that it was useless to ask her.

As they passed down the steep path to the road she spoke over her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t marry him for a million pounds!” she said viciously. “He is going to marry Leslie Gine, isn’t he? I wish him joy!”

“I will convey your kind message,” he said ironically, an indiscreet rejoinder, for it roused the devil in her.

“Mind he doesn’t lose her, that’s all!” she screamed. “I know! Everybody knows! You want her money too – the second son’s in love with her – that’s a nice look-out for Harry Alford!”

He sat swinging his legs over the edge of the bluff, watching her till she was out of sight.

Everybody knew that he loved Leslie Gine! And he only knew it himself at that moment!

6